Album review: The Kid Laroi’s First Time captures his pop/rap crossover success
As one of Australia’s most popular global music exports, The Kid Laroi’s debut The First Time cements the 20-year-old’s superstar status in line with his hot streak of recent years.
Album reviews for week of November 17 2023:
HIP-HOP/POP
The First Time
The Kid Laroi
Columbia / Sony Music Australia
As one of Australia’s most popular global music exports, The Kid Laroi’s debut album is a record that cements the young rapper and singer’s superstar status in line with his hot streak of recent years. Though his trilogy of mixtapes released in 2020 raked in platinum certifications and produced chart-busting singles — including the monster hit collaboration with Justin Bieber, titled Stay — there was still an air of juvenility about that collection of material. The artist born Charlton Howard was still perceived as a young person on the come-up in many ways; the sonic identity was there, but perhaps not fully realised. With The First Time, the Los Angeles-based, Sydney-raised performer has levelled up his game. There is a sense of consistency in sound throughout this record that shows finesse and strength across all areas: production, arrangement and conviction in delivery. Vocally, Laroi has never reinvented the wheel, but his music is not the type that demands it. Instead, it’s in the soundscapes and narratives he creates that has landed him on the map as one of the most in-demand names in pop music today. Here, smart pairings demonstrate Laroi’s sphere of influence, such as the Central Cee and Jung Kook collaboration on Too Much, and Baby Drill appearing on What’s The Move. With Future on the latter track, too, you can trace the threads of influence that the Atlanta rapper has had on the new generation: namely, Laroi’s generation.
Effortlessly blending trap production with electronic and pop influences bolsters the overall presentation; this is an album that perfectly captures pop/rap crossover success. The inclusion of an artist and producer like Robert Glasper (Call Me Instead), as well as Bieber on an interlude like Strangers Pt. 2, serve to flesh out The First Time in unique ways. When you think you have the sonic direction figured out, Laroi switches things up, though Call Me Instead is an isolated moment where the final form of a track feels lost or perhaps overbaked. Laroi excels when his vision and narrative is clear; here, the addition of US rapper NBA Youngboy feels unnecessary, and drowns out Laroi’s presence. These moments are rare, but when they appear, it takes the listener out of the mood somewhat. Still, the creative flourishes allowed to breathe on a full album show the 20-year-old’s artistic evolution; taking strides into a spotlight he commands all on his own, away from the expectations of others, as well as comparisons to those who have come before him.
Sosefina Fuamoli
JAZZ
Daughter of the Seas
Visions of Nar
ABC Jazz
Visions of Nar is a Sydney quintet that reflects several cultural heritages. It’s co-led by pianist Zela Margossian (born in Beirut of Armenian heritage), and includes percussionist Adem Yilmaz (born in Istanbul of Kurdish heritage) and tabla player Bobby Singh (born in England of Indian heritage). Also present are co-leader Jeremy Rose (saxophones) and guitarist Hilary Geddes, whose improvisatory styles reflect many diverse musical interests. The fascination of Daughter of the Seas rests in how potentially incompatible elements derived from different cultural sensibilities are successfully integrated. The triumph of this album is that the music works beautifully. Eleven compositions (six by Rose and five by Margossian) are inspired by Nar, described by Margossian as “the goddess of water and ocean, a powerful female mythical force in Armenian mythology”. This album demonstrates once again the illustrious capacity of jazz to provide the freedom necessary for musicians to express themselves in new ways. It also symbolises our country’s successful multiculturalism, which is now immensely enriching Australian jazz.
Eric Myers
COUNTRY/ROCK
All Night Long
Caitlin Harnett & The Pony Boys
Spunk
Named less after nocturnal partying than those dark nights of the soul, this Sydney ensemble’s second album catalogues the lingering lessons of failed relationships against a rich backdrop of barroom country rock. But it’s not just Harnett’s break-up following a seven-year romance that powers All Night Long: several songs were penned in solidarity with friends (Even Cowgirls Cry, Max’s Song) and family (Sidelines). Likewise, opener I’ll Get By isn’t aimed only at her ex, but at anyone who’s been holding her back. Meanwhile, the well-oiled band mixes weepy country flourishes with evergreen rock a la Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac. Aching with vulnerability, Harnett’s terrific voice nonetheless conveys persistent resilience alongside ringing guitars and jammier tangents, though sometimes the generous swathes of reverb verge on overkill. And after so many songs spent taking herself and others to task, it’s reassuring to hear Harnett deliver a firm kick of self-motivation on both Living With Yourself and Waiting for Something.
Doug Wallen
INDIE ROCK
The Land Is Hospitable and So Are We
Mitski
Dead Oceans
On her startlingly beautiful, lonely seventh album, indie-rock artist Mitski Miyawaki lives up to Iggy Pop’s praise that she is “one of the most advanced American songwriters that I know”. The 33-year-old, who once referred to herself as “an other in America”, was born in Japan and spent her childhood moving between countries because of her dad’s job in the US State Department, before settling in the States as a teenager. Her songwriting has served as a meditation on displacement and a means to dissect complex feelings around cultural identity. The Land Is Hospitable and So Are We is her most straightforwardly American album to date. It’s a saucer-eyed pilgrimage across forlorn, dusty terrains where fireflies dance, freight trains rattle, and mosquitoes are trapped in sticky, solitary glasses of bourbon. Mitski recorded the album in Nashville, lending to its country DNA: her voice, which has never sounded purer, floats above languorous pedal steel guitars, brushed snare drums, plain-spoken strumming, and choral embellishments that sound like a spooky take on Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.
Geordie Gray
FUNK-JAZZ
Superblue: The Iridescent Spree
Kurt Elling + Charlie Hunter
Edition Records
Kurt Elling has accumulated a dozen Grammy nominations — and a couple of gongs — and headed 14 consecutive Down Beat magazine polls during a stellar 30-year recording career. What those bare statistics fail to show, however, is the sheer stylistic versatility of his output as America’s premier jazz vocalist. Elling’s seemingly insatiable thirst for exploration is perfectly exemplified by his second SuperBlue-titled album in succession with co-producer and hybrid guitar whiz Charlie Hunter and the hip-hop generation duo of keyboardist DJ Harrison and drummer Corey Fonville, and an additional brass section on selected tracks. The aptly named new release consolidates this A-team’s intoxicating 21st century blend of poetry and soulful jazz-funk. Erudite Elling originals delivered with the frontman’s inimitably suave vocalese virtuosity vie with his dynamic covers and reinventions in a scintillating set that’s bookended by a gloriously updated rendition of Joni Mitchell’s Black Crow, as well as a wry spoken reading of former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins’s darkly humorous The Afterlife.
Tony Hillier
Album reviews for week of November 10 2023:
ELECTRONICA
The Silver Cord
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
KGLW
The wildly eclectic nature of Melbourne sextet King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard was made apparent as early as its first two albums: 2012’s Twelve Bar Bruise, a collection of urgent garage-rock numbers, was followed the next year by a spoken-word spaghetti western titled Eyes Like The Sky. Detours into psychedelia, pop, folk, thrash and prog-rock have all followed in the ensuing decade, and it’s all canonically made sense within the band’s lore (fondly known by its global legion of fans as the “Gizzverse”). Put it this way: King Gizzard is the only band to have ever been nominated for both Best Jazz Album and Best Metal Album at the ARIAs. So, where has this exhaustive and wildly prolific adventure landed us this time, on album No.25? In contrast to the heavy guitars of its predecessor, PetroDragonic Apocalypse — released just a few months ago, in June — The Silver Cord shifts its attention to the realm of electronic music. True to the album cover’s nature, the band is primarily focused on a mountainous array of different synthesisers – with the tone quite literally set across the opening suite of Theia and the title track. Drummer Michael Cavanagh strikes away at an electronic kit, while frontman Stu Mackenzie lets his mantra-like vocals weave in and out of various twirling arpeggios, occasionally adding robotic effects to further emphasise the synthetic environment.
King Gizzard has occasionally detoured into this sound, like on 2019 single Cyboogie, but has never chased it down the rabbit hole quite like this. As with many of the band’s albums, it’s an uneven affair. For every inspired synth line and deep groove, something inevitably comes along to upset the balance. Take band member Ambrose Kenny-Smith, who decides now’s a good time to start rapping. (Spoiler alert: it’s not.) In fact, of all his musical abilities, rapping might be the thing he is worst at. More frustrating, though, is the album’s format. Its standard seven-track version runs just shy of half an hour, while an extended version takes its title very literally and balloons out to nearly 90 minutes. This means, either way, The Silver Cord is either way too much or not quite enough. In the past, the band has poked fun at its prolific nature: “If something is shit and no one likes it, you just put out another album the next month,” Cavanagh joked in an interview. While The Silver Cord never gets that bad, maybe wait a few weeks and see if album No.26 suits you better.
David James Young
WORLD
Blue Magic
Moussa Diakite
MGM
Some ace West African musicians have migrated to Australia over the years – none more acclaimed than Malian marvel Moussa Diakite, band sideman to superstar compatriots Salif Keita and Toumani Diabate. Since moving down under, he has wowed audiences from Darwin and Bellingen to WOMADelaide and Woodford with his guitar wizardry, singing and ultra-catchy Wassoulou-styled songs. This third solo record while based in Oz has added resonance, given that it was conceived during the Covid lockdown here while political turmoil and humanitarian crisis engulfed his homeland. After laying down the core tracks in Sydney with his local band Wassado, Diakite returned to Africa and had traditional West African instrumentation added by some of Mali’s finest young musicians. The end result is an electrifying, world-class album that crackles with energy and emotion from go to whoa, with the veteran leader’s dazzling guitar runs to the fore in the solos. The title track, featuring harmonica and talking drum, is one of two contrasting instrumentals.
Tony Hillier
ART POP
Sit Down to Dinner
Blonde Redhead
Partisan
Softening with the years, Blonde Redhead’s gently bejewelled balladry is as reliable now as at any point over the New York trio’s three-decade career. The band’s 10th studio album takes its name from a line in Joan Didion’s 2005 memoir The Year of Magical Thinking, which inspired Japanese-born Kazu Makino and Italian-born twin brothers Amedeo and Simone Pace in different ways. It’s a mellow record even by recent Blonde Redhead standards, yet these sparse and dreamy arrangements are all too easy to bask in while Makino and Amedeo trade distinctive vocal turns. Influenced by Brazilian experimental music, opener Snowman rides a looping, almost hiccupping rhythm before its mesmerising hand drums accelerate by way of culmination. The two-part title track is almost too subtle in its first half, but more rewardingly animated in its second. Especially gorgeous are the reverbed drift of Amedeo’s I Thought You Should Know and Makino’s a cappella-inspired vocal layering on Rest of Her Life.
Doug Wallen
PROGRESSIVE ROCK/ART POP
The Harmony Codex
Steven Wilson
Virgin
Having firmly filled the progressive metal-shaped hole in the hearts of his fanbase with last year’s Porcupine Tree reunion album, Steven Wilson returns to his love of synthesisers and experimentation on solo album No.7. Featuring contributions from nearly two dozen session musicians – including core players Adam Holzman and Nick Beggs, and long-time collaborator Ninet Tayeb – The Harmony Codex mostly achieves Wilson’s stated aim of creating 10 unique musical worlds. From prog-jazz freakouts (Impossible Tightrope) and Pink Floyd-esque balladry (What Life Brings), to cinematic minimalism (the title track) and trip-hop jams (Actual Brutal Facts), the British muso’s sonic boundaries are impressively expanded here. Only on Time is Running Out and Beautiful Scarecrow does the musical vision not feel fully realised. Still, both tracks tread exciting new ground for an artist usually accustomed to riffing on a six-string. Prog purists may thumb their noses at it, but for those who stick around, this is a wonderful new chapter in one of music’s most enthralling careers.
Alasdair Belling
ROCK
History Books
The Gaslight Anthem
Rich Mahogany/Cooking Vinyl
Following mixed reactions to its 2014 album Get Hurt, New Jersey heartland-punk quartet The Gaslight Anthem quietly departed – not with a bang, but a whimper. It returns nine years later with members older and wiser, yet still in search of the American dream that shaped modern genre classics like Sink or Swim (2007) and The ‘59 Sound (2008). History Books, its sixth LP, feels like a full-circle effort – not least of all because longtime influence Bruce Springsteen finally collaborates with the band on its high-point, the propulsive title track. It’s a largely more thoughtful, contemplative collection – there’s ruminative storytelling on The Weatherman and Michigan 1975 – but it still offers up some classic guitar-heavy Gaslight moments on Little Fires and I Live In the Room Above. Though not quite on par with the band’s heyday output, and perhaps a little too mellow for what’s ostensibly a comeback effort, there’s still joy to be found within this revival of a decades-long bond between four musicians destined for the titular pages when it’s all said and done.
David James Young
Album reviews for week of November 3 2023:
HIP-HOP/R&B
Sweet Justice
Tkay Maidza
Dew Process/Universal
At age 27, Zimbabwean-Australian musician Tkay Maidza has already lived many lives. Swept up in a round of early hype as a Triple J-approved party rapper, Maidza quickly found the local scene limiting to her wide-screen creative vision. She subsequently relocated to Los Angeles, signing with esteemed indie label 4AD, and releasing a steady stream of boundary-pushing, futuristic R&B that challenged preconceptions of her capabilities, and also of herself. That bet appears to have paid off with second album Sweet Justice, which synthesises the excitement and experimentation of her recent trilogy of EPs, Last Year Was Weird. Those records, released in drips across the past three years, reimagined Maidza in popular imagination as an artist who wasn’t just hungry, but also knew how to pull together the best chefs to cook up something unique. Maidza’s relentless restlessness and strong aesthetic has meant that when she comes home these days, it’s usually because she’s touring with the likes of Dua Lipa and Billie Eilish. It’s safe to say that she now occupies a new lane.
Though perhaps best-known for her high-octane, spitfire verses, less celebrated is Maidza’s ability to fluidly shift gears and moods while retaining her sonic signature. The record opens with two very different tracks, almost as an act of defiance: the woozy bedroom jam of Love and Other Drugs crashes into the industrial electronica of WUACV. It’s a flex repeated across the album, and one which would easily trip up a lesser artist. The record also tracks the evolution of Maidza’s voice as its own instrument. Similar to many of her American contemporaries, who modulate their tone to shift modes, some of the most entertaining songs here find their author in her lowest register, practically dripping with swagger (Ring-A-Ling), while Love Again eschews R&B in favour of a straight-up pop vocal. Maidza’s choice of collaborators, which runs the gamut from Kaytranada’s neo-funk (Our Way) to the harsh metallic textures of Flume (Silent Assassin). There are multiple entry points for an artist with a seemingly bottomless reservoir of ideas. It’s only when she lands in the middle that Maidza flounders, with a clutch of similar tracks (What You Know, Ghost) that could have benefited from tighter editing. Perhaps this is an album Tkay could not have made while working in Australia; that’s a shame, if so, because there’s plenty here to inspire the next wave of locals coming up behind her.
Jonathan Seidler
AMERICANA-NOIR
The Reckoning
Nigel Wearne
Independent
With The Reckoning, southwest Victorian folk troubadour Nigel Wearne confidently crosses the border into cinematic territory. Imbuing his self-tagged Americana-noir album with the atmospheric compositional and arranging chutzpah of Ennio Morricone, vocal swagger of Van Morrison and dark spirituality and intelligence of Nick Cave, this poetic wordsmith, singer and multi-instrumentalist par excellence excels with songs that pinball from dystopian thoughts to lascivious wishes. Sashaying between reverb-laden blues, soul and rock with expert assistance from a dynamic Melbourne rhythm duo and a classy French-Canadian brass trio, Wearne wastes no time cutting to the chase in rippers like the rockabilly-driven 8 Minutes (”What will I say if the sun explodes? / If the gas depletes and the core implodes?”), in the Latin-infused title track (”The prophet wheezes / At the microphone/ And flails his arms in vain / As the acolytes wane”) and in the ballad Eventide (”The drinker exhales relief / Another night is born / The lover defies belief / That time might reveal the morn”).
Tony Hillier
GARAGE ROCK
Push Play
Rocket Science
Cheersquad
Melbourne quartet Rocket Science keeps things punchy and unpolished on its sixth album, right from the junkyard funk groove of the opening title track. Roman Tucker’s mood-swinging vocal turns and bleary organ parts continue to lead the charge, but the rhythm section of bassist Dave Gray and drummer Kit Warhurst shouldn’t be underestimated. Produced once again by guitarist Paul Maybury, Push Play maintains a chaotic rawness that verges on Cramps-style grotesquerie on My Art, My Struggle. That’s one of several songs here to mull over the ongoing challenges of creative expression, along with Making of an Artist and the spoken-word Pig. If the album’s second half lags in energy compared to the first, Rocket Science can always be relied upon for unexpected personal flourishes. Whether railing against cheaply made clothing (Fashion Emergency) or pivoting to spiky post-punk (Agitation), these veteran noisemakers still sound like they can barely be contained within studio walls.
Doug Wallen
POST-ROCK
End
Explosions in the Sky
Temporary Residence Limited
When listening to an Explosions In The Sky album, one needs to keep in mind this is ground zero for much of modern post-rock, which hundreds of artists would go on to ape. While many bands may like to cite Talk Talk and Joy Division as their inspirations, it’s the washed-out, reverb-heavy soundscapes these Texans captured so masterfully in the early 2000s that now dilutes the instrumental genre via all manner of copycats. It’s a shame, then, that much of the quartet’s eighth album sounds more akin to its knock-offs than the grandeur EITS embodied on previous releases. Standouts Ten Billion People and All Mountains carry the same level of nostalgia and atmospherics that fans love, while Moving On has a playful sweetness to it. However, the rest of the set is sadly lacking in the drama, dynamism and excitement that inspired so many bedroom pedal board aficionados in the first place. Most egregious is smouldering closer It’s Never Going to Stop, which does nothing to justify its eight-minute run time. Despite the album title, the band has indicated this is not the end of its career — a relief for longtime fans, as the band is capable of achieving far more than this.
Alasdair Belling
JAZZ
Project Infinity: Live at Phoenix Central Park
Jeremy Rose
Earshift Music
Free improvisation in jazz is that genre in which most of the music is spontaneously created on the spot with a minimum of written preparation. Many relatively young jazz musicians in the current generation have taken to it with relish, with varying degrees of success. This album from Sydney’s Jeremy Rose (saxophone & bass clarinet) and three brilliant colleagues — Novak Manojlovic (keyboards), Tully Ryan (drums) and Ben Carey (modular synthesiser) — is a superior example of the genre. Because free improvisation can result in sounds never heard before, its proponents can over-estimate its originality. Indeed, this album’s promotional spiel claims the music is “exploring the post-jazz, post-everything sound world”. Ironically, however, as I hear this album I find familiar signposts everywhere from the jazz tradition which draw me into the music. Try as they might to be “original”, these great improvisers cannot disguise the jazz heritage which is essential to their thinking, and that is why, in my view, Project Infinity is an unmitigated success.
Eric Myers